From Burned-Out & Broke to Freedom & Passive Income

The word “Solopreneur” has only recently surfaced in Pop Culture vocabulary. Maybe this is the first time you’ve read it.

According to Macmillan Dictionary, a Solopreneur is a Business Owner who works and runs their business alone. Every decision is unilateral, and they are accountable to no one but their families, clientele, vendors, and/or creditors.

This might sound like a nod to Coldplay’s 2011 hit Paradise, but you’d be surprised how many of my clients fit the classic definition of Solopreneur.

Yet despise every minute of it.

For instance, when you are the only one in charge, the buck stops there. EVERY buck stops there.

As a glorified freelancer, every mistake is your fault even when it’s not. Every problem is your job to fix even if you didn’t cause it.

This frazzled state of mind is the one I found a recent client in from healthcare.

A bright young clinician with a thriving medical practice, this woman’s organization looked to have everything going for it.

But because she ran her practice like a Solopreneur (because, well, she pretty much was), she was broke!

She saw patients 10 hours everyday 6 days a week, rarely took vacations, and struggled to pay rent.

The very first thing I did to bring order to chaos — systems. I helped my client create automated processes to track income, expenses, and insurance reimbursements.

Within 2 weeks, we found the leaks.

Multiple insurance companies had not been paying her like she thought, and her few entry-level staff members had not accurately tracked expenses manually. These mistakes turned out to be unethical, worthy of termination.

Free from incompetent and dishonest employees, she now enjoys an easily monitorable dashboard she can access at any time to “check up” her practice’s financial health.

I also worked with her on the entrepreneurial mindset, freeing her from the belief that she HAD to be available to her patients 24/7 or they would go elsewhere.

Now, additional practitioners see patients for her, providing enough passive income so she can take regular vacations and earn money while she travels!

Less than 3 years after we began working together, she was able to purchase the office building where she works, and will have it paid off in 5 years.

Looking back, yes, my client was grateful to start her career as a Solopreneur. But there was a greater freedom available to her as a full-fledged Business Owner.

Freedom from her business to build her business.

From burned-out and broke to freedom and passive income — that’s a trade I’ll take any day of the week!

Are you ready to become the next success story?

2 Comments

Great message, Tom! So many of us freelancers, or solopreneurs, are great at our craft, but not our business. Such an important lesson to learn to figuring out how to achieve more freedom in your life. Love it!